Recover Orphaned Virtual Machines

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Virtual machines appear with (orphaned) appended to their names.

Problem

Virtual machines that reside on an ESXi host that vCenter Server manages might become orphaned in rare cases. Such virtual machines exist in the vCenter Server database, but the ESXi host no longer recognizes them.

Cause

Virtual machines can become orphaned if a host failover is unsuccessful, or when the virtual machine is unregistered directly on the host. If this situation occurs, move the orphaned virtual machine to another host in the data center on which the virtual machine files are stored.

Solution

Determine the datastore where the virtual machine configuration (.vmx) file is located.

Select the virtual machine in the vSphere Web Client inventory, and click the Datastores tab.

The datastore or datastores where the virtual machine files are stored are displayed.

If more than one datastore is displayed, select each datastore and click the file browser icon to browse for the .vmx file.

Verify the location of the .vmx file.

Return to the virtual machine in the vSphere Web Client, right-click it, and select All Virtual Infrastructure Actions > Remove from Inventory.

Click Yes to confirm the removal of the virtual machine.

Reregister the virtual machine with vCenter Server.

Right-click the datastore where the virtual machine file is located and select Register VM.